Free points, cash back, and rewards from Staples

This deal is good through 8/31/2013. Rebate ID=13-75033. Hat Tip Trevor.

Staples has a new Free After Easy Rebate software download. These are usually a great way to make progress toward meeting credit card minimum spend thresholds or to earn points and cash back for buying software regardless of whether you actually want the software. This time, the total spend is pretty small ($60), but its better than nothing…

The idea is to go through an online portal to Staples.com and buy software for which you’ll eventually get all of your money back. The best current portal options offer 5% cash back. Once at Staples.com, buy three copies of this product for a total cost of $60. If you use your Chase Ink card you will earn 5 points per dollar since this is an office supply purchase. In other words, you could earn about 300 points for free, plus $3 cash back, plus $3 in Staples Rewards.

Staples has an amazingly easy “Easy Rebate” system. Once you purchase the software, they send you a rebate link via email. You click the link, fill out a little bit of info and you’re done. Note that you will have to wait a while, though. It takes 4 to 6 weeks to receive your check.

If you have questions, please see the Q&A section at the bottom of this post.

Here are the steps to follow:

Step 1: Choose a shopping portal:

You can get additional points or cash back by starting with a shopping portal. Some good choices are uPromise 5%, ShopDiscover 5%, and the Ultimate Rewards Mall 3 points per dollar.

Step 3: Check out

TIP 1: If you have Staples’ rewards money, use it! If you have a Chase Ink card that gives 5X for office supplies, use it! TIP 2: Your state may charge sales tax. If you know someone in a state that doesn’t charge sales tax for downloadable internet orders (CA, NH, etc.), then set their address as the delivery address and no tax will be charged. This is a download only purchase anyway, so nothing will really be delivered. I picked “deliver to store” and picked a store in New Hampshire. Of course, there won’t really be anything to pick up.

TIP 3: Checkout the latest Staples’ coupons here. The $10 off $100 coupon might be of interest to you if you have additional Staples’ purchases to make.

Step 4: Submit Easy Rebates

You will receive an email from Staples with a link in it for submitting the rebates . It’s easy! Even though you ordered 3 items, you’ll only have to fill out the rebate once.

TIP: The software rebate can be changed from a Visa gift card to a check! About 4 screens into the rebate process, you’ll see something like this (screenshot is from a previous rebate, not the current ones):

Click on “or see other options for my reward” and you’ll see this:

Q&A:

Same Item

Q: In the past I’ve bought the exact same item for the rebate. Can I do this again?

A: Yes. As long as the rebate number is different from your past purchases, you should qualify for a new rebate. This rebate is different from any I’ve posted about in the past.

Per Household Limit

Q: Can I buy a copy for every friend I know?

A: I don’t recommend it. I know at least one person who tried to do something similar, but Staples did not approve the second set of rebates. I don’t know how they figured it out.

Status = Researching

Q: The status of my order says “researching”. What’s up with that?

A: Staples needs to verify your order. Sometimes this happens if you have the wrong email address or phone number on file. Simply give them a call or do an online chat with them to verify the information they need. Once that is done, they’ll confirm the order.

Ultimate Rewards Mall T&C

Q: The Staples’ Terms and Conditions in the Ultimate Rewards Mall says “Not eligible on promotional items, technology, software, and electronics”. Shouldn’t this deal be ineligible since this is software? And, aren’t these free after rebate items “promotional”?

A: In all past FAR deals, points have posted despite these terms & conditions, but there is always a risk that portal points won’t post.

Do I have to use a Chase credit card?

Q: If I go through the Ultimate Rewards Mall to Staples, do I have to pay with a Chase credit card in order to get bonus points from the mall?

A: No, you can use any credit card, but you may have better luck with a Chase card. For details and information about risks involved please see Ultimate Question.

Rebate Time

Q: How long will it take for my rebate to arrive?

A: The Staples web site says to expect 4 to 6 weeks. In my experience, that estimate is fairly accurate.

Download

Q: Do I have to download this software so that I can qualify for the rebate?

A: No! I didn’t download any of the software I’ve bought in the past, but all rebates processed successfully.

Double Dip

Q: Can I double dip by buying a Staples gift card through a portal and then go through the portal again to use the gift card?

A: No. Staples gift cards are for in-store use only. They do not work online.

Do Good

Q: I don’t need this software. Is there someone I can send the license keys to that could make good use of this stuff?

A: Check with your local schools or libraries. If someone can make good use of this software, then great!

Chase's 5/24 Rule: With most Chase credit cards, Chase will not approve your application if you have opened 5 or more cards with any bank in the past 24 months. Some exceptions that do not fall under the 5/24 rule include: British Airways, Hyatt, IHG, Marriott Business, and Ritz Carlton.

Greg is the owner, founder, and primary author of the Frequent Miler. He earns millions of points and miles each year, mostly without flying, and dedicates this blog to teaching others how to do the same.

A: Staples doesn’t show the discounted price until you checkout
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Promo_Jake, Nick: Yes, you can get the $50 gift card and free $10 e-promo code (which I wrote about here), but you would have to use them in-store, so you’d have to pay sales tax in most states.

David: I don’t know this for sure, but I bet that you would need a US billing address to pay for this and a US address for delivery (or have it delivered to store in NH)

Point Travelers: Yep, the boxed version is out of stock. Even the download version will probably go in and out of stock during the week (that has happened almost every other time I’ve reported something like this), so keep checking if it shows as OOS.

I did an easy rebate with Staples last week and they had the option to get paid via PayPal. I haven’t check this on yet so I’m not sure if this is for all items or specific ones. Mine was a rebate for a ream of paper.

While I appreciate Frequent Miler letting us know about this offer, I agree with Levandar. I just don’t think its worth all that effort for the money and miles involved. Some time ago there was an offer where you could buy 10 software packages for the more expensive 3 user product. That was certainly worth the time, miles and wait for the refund.

Staples is one of the best places to make a weekly trip to be able to meet minimum spend. This week, Staples is paying me to take 3 of the Kaspersky (you could actually make $6/copy by using last week’s 30% off. Staples coupons are good 2 days paste the expiration), 4 reams of white copy paper, 4 reams of pastel, 4 packages of photo paper.

In the end, I spent $400 on eGift cards. That got me $480 worth of eGift cards thanks to the promotion they are running right now. I spent $120 of that, so I still have about $360 worth of eGift cards left (used the $80 in promo ones first since they expire in Sept). Total profit ($80 promotion eGift + $125 rebates – $120 spent) = $85 plus the paper and software. Yes, I still have to find a way to spend $360 at Staples, but with their weekly FAR offers, that will be gone soon.

I chose to use a card I needed to meet minimum spend on as the eGift cards wouldn’t have given me 5% on my Ink because they are not issued by Staples directly.

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